The Chaos Dwarfs are finally coming to Total War: Warhammer 3

Total War: Warhammer 3 is getting a new expansion on April 13th. The Forge Of The Chaos Dwarfs campaign pack adds, well, the Chaos Dwarfs, with three Legendary Lords - Astragoth Ironhand, Drazhoath the Ashen, and Zhatan the Black - and new campaign objectives and units to command. One of those units is a big, roaring daemon-machine-dinosaur hybrid.

Chaos Dwarfs are Gimlis gone dark, a mixture of evil sorcerers and murderous engineers, who are attempting to build the "Great Drill of Hashut" in order to mine through reality itself. They're a colourful squad, in other words, with Astragoth Ironhand a sorcerer-prophet whose body "has begun to petrify, confining him to near-living entombment within a powerful mech-suit", for example.

You'll be battling traditional dwarfs for ancient relics you can corrupt, with four new campaign mechanics helping to tell the story, including special schematics to develop, convoys via which to trade, and an economy that involves "the subjugation and management of labourers". I think "subjugation" is something of a euphimism.

I'm not much of a Warhams guy - see: "daemon-machine-dinosaur hybrid" above, when I'd guess it's really a K'daai something-or-other - but watching this really makes me wish that I was. It looks so lush, so expensive, so filled with carefully reconstructed machinery and creatures and hats. I imagine that to have the thing you're into serviced with such obvious care would be like a big tummy rub. [Smash cut, presumably, to the Warhammer Fantasy fan community being furious and disappointed, because that's how fan communities work.]

A free update will come alongside the expansion which will add "Legendary Hero Ulrika Magdova", a vampire that's good at both melee and ranged combat. The lot of it will release on April 13th, with Forge Of The Chaos Dwarfs costing £18 on Steam.